Model Railway

[pete9012S]

[pete9012S]

Viv:
John and I have been risking life and limb, failing to find a 1000 year old, thirty stem, lime tree in Sussex .

Scrabbling up a badger track, slipping on scree, I saw this flint with a hole in it, which I couldn't resist putting in my pocket.

I shall call it The Solstice Stone, and find a place for it when I get round to making the Enchanted Wood!

(I could just imagine The Famous Five strolling across the fields in that last pic Viv!)

[Viv of Ginger Pop]

I've just caught up with the Stonehenge Light Railway - in a suitcase - which has a brilliant back story.

Thanks for sharing

And thanks again for the pics, Pete!

[pete9012S]

Viv wrote:

Here's the next act.
The stage is made from coffee cups and the lights are beads and shells

Viv wrote:

Here's the next act.
The stage is made from coffee cups and the lights are beads and shells

[pete9012S]

Viv wrote:
On leaving Stonehenge, the Hippies were happy to discover a 'free' festival in Somerset.

[Lucky Star]

Smashing. I would never have believed that such a lovely world could be created in a suitcase of all things! It's very very creative.

[Viv of Ginger Pop]

Over the summer I have been doing little bits and pieces for the model railway (and buying assorted items from charity shops) but now with a week of rain forecast I shall get some pictures out, with help from Boatbuilder.

Hopefully you will see

• Weymouth and Portland, with sailing regatta

• Windsor Castle, with Red Arrows fly past

• Heathrow Airport

• Two London termini and featuring the London Eye, Tower Bridge, Big Ben etc

... and many other places from across the country of historical and cultural interest!

[Viv of Ginger Pop]

One of the things to think about when constructing a railway in a tight space is scale. The Suitcase Trains people do a wonderful job using N scale buildings and figures throughout, and their layouts are works of art! The problem is that the trains will only go round on a loop, with maybe one set of points.

https://www.youtube.com/c/Suitcasetrains

I wanted something different, a switching layout with lots of points, and track that could occasionally be taken up and refigured. I was going to need at least 6 stations to play games, but an N gauge station platform would take up the full width of my suitcase!

At the end of last year, I thought I had solved the problem of what size a station should be, when I discovered wooden Christmas decorations in the shape of a little building. At £1 each, they were also far cheaper than cardboard kits from the model shop. However, I then came across really tiny buildings; 45 in a wooden box for £4.50! As they were 2D they took up very little space.

Since my locomotives would rarely pull more than 2 wagons, I reckoned that making station platforms from lolly sticks would be sufficient for my requirements. Longer platforms could be made from wooden plant label sticks. Over the year I have been saving all lolly sticks, ice-cream tub spoons, wooden cutlery and coffee stirrers, and have built a good array of sizes. Hourglass shape lolly sticks make excellent station platforms for outside a curve, and wooden knife blades are good for inside a curve!

I have made my station platforms 2 lolly sticks high. The station name boards are removable, supported on match sticks that fit loose inside supportive cube shape beads. To play games, one side of the station building is painted, colour coded to both a dice – and chocolate Smarties!

A trip to a charity shop brought about a eureka moment, when for 50p I bought a fridge magnet of a gorge – and I had recently visited Lydford Gorge in Devon. The magnet was made of resin, and gave a wonderful 3D effect of a piece of landscape, yet took up a very small footprint.

The next Post will be about my Weymouth and Portland scene. Resin magnets have enabled it to include the harbour, clock tower and Portland Bill lighthouse!

[Courtenay]

You are doing something brilliant, Viv! I'm really enjoying hearing about all these clever miniature constructions and seeing the occasional photos.

For some reason or other I missed seeing the Solstice Stone that you found in June, as shown in the earlier photos that Pete posted. It looks like a miniature Barbara Hepworth sculpture! Would love to see where you put it in the Enchanted Wood, once that's ready.

[Anita Bensoussane]

You probably know that flints or other stones with holes right through them were traditionally thought to have magical powers, Viv. Some people call them "hag stones". A lucky find!

Your railway seems to have grown beyond an Enchanted Wood/fantasy theme!

[Boatbuilder]

I am making this post on behalf of Viv who sent me the pictures and text and I just hope I've got the different texts linked to the correct images. (I think I have )


A selection of Christmas decoration buildings:




A townscape on lolly sticks. The houses with picket fences are from another supplier:




The nine 2D buildings. The empty section had the smallest - now made into signal boxes! :




Stations on lolly sticks. The removable names make it easy to add locations. The red station has been turned round to show the pyrography detailing:




The detailing of Lydford Gorge resin magnet:




The Jubilee Clock even has the land train running in front of it, and gives a bit of height at the back of the suitcase.
The Portland magnet replaces the little b&w model lighthouse I used previously. Since there are 3 lighthouses at Portland Bill, I did consider using both, but that seemed cramped. Again, it gives a bit of height.
The sailing boats were decorating a photo frame, £1 from a charity shop. There are some copper colour dinghys in the background, which I think were intended as keyring decorations. The tug boats are buttons, which were 2 shades of blue, so I've painted them. They now show up against the washing-up sponge cloth sea!
er - any ideas for the orange and white mystery object...




I stood on the Town Bridge in Weymouth, admiring the detail of the Quay magnet, and concluded that it must have been taken from a photograph, the detailing is so good:




You will have seen the seaside corner starting in previous photos. It wasn't meant to be anywhere in particular, until I came across these magnets. They stand up very well with the aid of a bit of Meccano called a bent trunnion:

[Viv of Ginger Pop]

Whenever we have a feast, it is deemed that my Girl Guide Flower Arranger’s badge makes me the best qualified person in my conservation group to be responsible for table decorations,

At Christmas it is straight forward enough, though I have now given up on using much fresh foliage from the garden. Too often it was soaking wet, and as much as we love tiny creatures, having them stroll across the dinner table was not good.

What is more of a challenge is when our Twin group from France come on a visit. Then, the criteria is “it mustn’t look like Christmas” and I am running out of themes!

A couple of weeks ago, wondering what I would do this time round, my eyes alighted on the many boxes of ‘stuff’ associated with the railway that have been adorning my lounge floor for some months. In particular I thought about the Green Man as-a-tree ornaments that John got me for my birthday – and the display stands that I then persuaded the shop-keeper to sell me.

Hmmm…

Each place setting had a water-lily paper serviette, inside of which was a little character destined for my Enchanted Wood at night scene.



On a separate table, at the top of the village hall, were pieces of scenery, where the characters could be placed. A notice explained what it was about (thanks for the link to the books in French!) and that the characters were NOT A GIFT and Viv needed them back! A magazine article gave the history of the Green Man



Lots of characters - we had 30 hungry people for dinner!





Incidentally, the Pixie Band was atop my 4th birthday cake. My mum throws away nothing!



Thanks BB for photo services

[Katharine]

Great photos - I love the little wooden figures.

I also like the fact that you mother doesn't throw anything away - I'm glad I'm not the only one.